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The rising tide of protest over the refusal by the NHS to provide expensive drugs for cancer and other conditions is being funded by the pharmaceutical industry, an investigation by The Independent has revealed.

Patient groups that have been among the most vocal in spearheading attacks on the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) over decisions to restrict access to drugs on the NHS depend for up to half of their income on drug companies, but details are often undisclosed.
The growing clamour over decisions by Nice to ban access to certain drugs has outraged patients and the public, and undermined confidence in the NHS.

Protests have been launched by charities including the National Kidney Federation, the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance, the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society, Beating Bowel Cancer, the Royal National Institute for the Blind and the Alzheimer's Society. All of these charities received sums of up to six figures from drug companies in 2007.
The extent of the drug companies' support for the smaller charities has led to criticisms that supposedly grassroots patient organisations are puppets of the pharmaceutical industry, being used to bludgeon Nice into making the drugs available on the health service. A positive decision by Nice on a drug not only guarantees sales to the NHS but can influence global markets worth billions of pounds.

Yet none of the charities named has criticised the high prices charged by the pharmaceutical companies for their products in their recent campaigns.
The National Kidney Federation (NKF) accused Nice of taking a "barbaric, damaging and unacceptable" decision when it turned down four kidney cancer drugs for NHS use this year and pledged to campaign against the decision. It did not criticise the cost of the drugs, at more than £3,000 for a 30-tablet pack. Half the NKF's £300,000 budget comes from the pharmaceutical and renal industries.

The Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance (Arma) organised a protest letter from 10 professors of rheumatology, published in The Sunday Times last month, over a recent Nice decision to restrict access to arthritis drugs. The letter made no mention of the cost of the drugs but Ros Meek, chief executive, admitted that "half, or more" of the charity's £147,000 income came from the drug industry.

The National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society described the same Nice decision as "another nail in the coffin" for arthritis treatment and launched an appeal against it this week, with Arma and three drug companies. The society received 49 per cent of its £300,000 budget from the pharmaceutical industry in 2005-06, reducing to 26 per cent of its £472,000 budget in 2006-07.

Beating Bowel Cancer, which condemned a Nice decision to turn down the bowel cancer drugs Avastin and Erbitux as "a scandal", and assisted a BBC Panorama programme on the postcode lottery in drugs for cancer, received 10 per cent of its £1m income from pharmaceutical companies last year. It also made no mention of the cost of the treatments. Two of the biggest campaigns against Nice decisions in recent years were organised by the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) and the Alzheimer's Society which, between them, represent millions of patients. Six figure sums were paid to both charities by drug companies last year but because they are large organisations, the donations accounted for less than 1 per cent of their total income.

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry has tightened its code on drug company funding of patient groups, which requires companies to agree grants in writing and to be transparent. Both the RNIB and the Alzheimer's Society declare their drug company funding on their websites, in the spirit of the code, but many smaller charities do not. Tim Kendall, director of research at the Royal College of Psychiatrists said the pharmaceutical industry reached into "every corner of the health service" in order to gain influence.

"Drug companies will try to do anything to align their interests with those of patients. They do things at every level of the health service and we know they do it with patient groups. It is a multi-pronged approach to persuade patients that their drug is the one."

Cost effective? The medication selection process
1. The drug is licensed for use as safe and effective by the European Medicines Agency.
2. The Department of Health refers the drug to Nice for assessment.
3. Nice convenes a committee of 20, including doctors, nurses, specialists, patients, drug company representatives and health economists.
4. The committee compares the new drug with existing drugs on cost and effectiveness.
5. The committee decides if the drug is cost effective using the Quality Adjusted Life Year (Qaly), a measure of health gain for quality and length of life.
6. Drugs are mostly approved up to £30,000 per Qaly.

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The rising tide of protest over the refusal by the NHS to provide expensive drugs for cancer and other conditions is being funded by the pharmaceutical industry, an investigation by The Independent has revealed.

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Why am I not surprised.

The amount they try to charge for these products is ridiculous. The strict multi-million pound testing laws and regulations for these (usually crap anyway) treatments mean they have a complete monopoly on the market. Give the instructions of how to make them to the worlds drug dealers, and the competiton would make the price plummet.

Now who's going to invest multi-millions of dollars to get anything thats non patenable and thus cant have a profit made off it through as a treatment for cancer? No-one.

As Griffin says: "A control for cancer is known, and it comes from nature. But it is not available to the public because it can not be patented, and therefore is not commercially attractive to the pharmaceutical industry" The amount of supression of viable cheap alternatives in this area is truly remarkable.

The amount they try to charge for these products is ridiculous. The strict multi-million pound testing laws and regulations for these (usually crap anyway) treatments mean they have a complete monopoly on the market. Give the instructions of how to make them to the worlds drug dealers, and the competiton would make the price plummet.

Now who's going to invest multi-millions of dollars to get anything thats non patenable and thus cant have a profit made off it through as a treatment for cancer? No-one.

As Griffin says: "A control for cancer is known, and it comes from nature. But it is not available to the public because it can not be patented, and therefore is not commercially attractive to the pharmaceutical industry" The amount of supression of viable cheap alternatives in this area is truly remarkable.

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not that i have any sympathy for the practices of the pharmaceutical industry, but is the Edward Griffin quote on a cancer-controling substance a reference to "amygdalin" / "laetrile" ( "B17") ?swim gathered that the conclusions on this were negative or inconclusive at best, beyond the supposed "pressure from parmaceutical groups" issue.

The Leatrile scam started back in the 1970's - hardly new. It's an organic cyanide (nitrile) from apricot pits. It will kill cancer - and you, too. It's too toxic for use in medicine. Anyone involved in this crap is not to be trusted. Lots of people died early from cancer by believing the hype around leatrile - and the "Government is trying to kill you!" conspiracy theories of the day. People with cancer traveled to Mexico to "Clinics" there where they were poisoned. Some died from the "treatment."

The Leatrile scam started back in the 1970's - hardly new. It's an organic cyanide (nitrile) from apricot pits. It will kill cancer - and you, too. It's too toxic for use in medicine. Anyone involved in this crap is not to be trusted. Lots of people died early from cancer by believing the hype around leatrile - and the "Government is trying to kill you!" conspiracy theories of the day. People with cancer traveled to Mexico to "Clinics" there where they were poisoned. Some died from the "treatment."

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Christ. Why wasn’t anyone sued? I didn’t think murder by poison was looked on so lightly. How many people were murdered?

Laetrile is not poisonous in normal amounts. Anyone who eats large amounts of it or gives people large doses of it is highly irresponsible, buts that’s the same for any drug or treatment. The molecule is made up of four components, two glucose, one cyanide, and one banzaldehyde. Yes, Cyanide is poisonous in gaseous form, they used it to gas people years ago, but this is only when in the pure form. When its locked up in the structure of the molecule, its not cyanide anymore, its a would be called a cyano[.....]. For example vitamin B12 contains cyanide, its called cyanocobalamin. Its not in its gaseous form, its locked up with banzaldehyde and glucose, and called amygdaline. Proponents think it works on treating cancer for a number of very good reasons, mainly by depositing the cyanide on the cancer cells, killing them, but not effecting the rest of the body.

As everyone knows, cyanide can be highly toxic in its pure form, and even fatal if taken in sufficient quantity. However, locked as it is in this natural state, it is chemically inert. There is only one substance that can unlock the Laetrile molecule and release the cyanide, an enzyme called beta-glucosidase, and when Laetrile comes in contact with the enzyme in the presence of water, not only is the cyanide released but also the benzaldehyde. Fortunately, the unlocking enzyme is not found to any dangerous degree anywhere in the body except at the cancer cell, where it always is present in great quantity, sometimes at levels in excess of one-hundred times that of the surrounding normal cells. The result is that Laetrile is unlocked at the cancer cell, releases its poisons to the cancer cell, and only to the cancer cell. Theres another important enzyme called rhodanese, which has the ability to neutralize cyanide by converting it instantly into by-products that actually are beneficial and essential to health. This enzyme is found in great quantities in every part of the body except the cancer cell which, consequently, is not protected.

The trouble is that no controlled or double-blind clinical trials have been reported (who would fund them? You cant patent it, so there no incentive to do so) And the few reported cases of cyanide poisoning are very dubious. Supporters of Amygdaline have since eaten many apple pips in one go, to show that there are no adverse effects. Your best bet is to eat as much as you would with your normal fruit intake, just don’t throw away the seeds. But over time, due to its bitter taste, this chemical and the seeds that contain it have gradually been processed out of modern peoples diets.

As you said, The drug was tested in the 70’s by some major cancer research institutes. And this is where the story gets messy, depending on which side you listen to.

In 1972, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center board member Benno Schmidt convinced the hospital to test laetrile so that he could assure others of its ineffectiveness "with some conviction".[19] However, the respected scientist put in charge of the testing, Kanematsu Sugiura, found that laetrile inhibited the secondary tumors in mice without destroying the primary tumors. He repeated the experiment three times with the same results, and then three more times.

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His first three experiments were not published because, in the words of Chester Stock, Sugiura's supervisor, "it would have caused all kind of havoc". Nevertheless the results were leaked in 1973, causing a stir. Subsequently laetrile was tested on 14 tumor systems, and a Sloan-Kettering press release concluded that "laetrile showed no beneficial effects".[19] Three other researchers were unable to confirm Sugiura's results, although one of three did confirm Sugiara's results in one of his three studies. Mistakes in the Sloan-Kettering press release were highlighted by a group of laetrile proponents led by Ralph Moss, former public affairs official of Sloan-Kettering hospital, who was fired when he announced his membership in the group. These mistakes were considered inconsequential, but Nicholas Wade in Science noted that "even the appearance of a departure from strict objectivity is unfortunate."[19] The results from these studies were published all together.

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After this Sugiura was pulled off the project, as it was presumed he had made a mistake, and they got two other scientists to perform the test, Elizabeth Stockett and her colleague, and they came up with essentially the same results as sigiura, in fact they were probably even more favourable than Sugiura was, and so they were pulled off the project too, and then finally the tests were given to a Dr Schmidt, who also verified this, but was told to keep quiet. And later all three were leaked due to angry people at the research centre, and due to this the final test was commissioned, which finally showed what they wanted; that there was no overall benefit to laetrile.

So what were these mistakes that Moss got fired for that were thought to be inconsequential by the big pharma? Him and others that dug into the research pointed out a weird anomaly. The mice in the final test receiving the saline injection proved to have their tumours stop growing 40% of the time. Which is impossible, if that’s the case then salt water is the cure we’ve all been looking for! Moss claimed they did this because the Laetrile mice were getting a recovery rate of 40%, and they wanted to show that there was no difference between the two groups. But he was fired, and the case for laetrile considered closed.

Some independant studies have been done since, and all have looked very promising, but they find it nearly impossible to get funding, as you don’t get a return from a non patentable drug. For example, one out many of these was conducted by Dr Mahendra Deonarain in 2000, and he came to the exact same conclusion that was postulated in the 70’s about the cyanide in laetrile being a very effective treatment for cancer. The BBC ran a good article on it:

[FONT=&quot]They have tested a two-stage drug that harnesses the power of the dangerous chemical to kill bowel cancer cells in the lab.[/FONT][FONT=&quot]The researchers, at Imperial College, London, now hope to refine the technology and test it on patients. The technique takes a lead from some plants that release cyanide to protect themselves from insect attack. [/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT][FONT=&quot]Tumour specific[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The cassava plant, almond tree and hydrangea, all have an enzyme that will produce cyanide when it comes into contact with a particular sugar molecule. The enzyme and the sugar are normally kept apart and are only brought together when a pest bites into the plant tissue. The Imperial College scientists have engineered the enzyme and attached it to an antibody that will target specific tumours, when injected into the body. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]A second drug, containing the sugar, would then be introduced which would react with the enzyme to release cyanide and kill the cancer cells. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]No resistance[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Dr Mahendra Deonarain said the system would be so specific that only the target tumour would be exposed to the cyanide. "The enzyme will circulate around the body and accumulate in the tumour only, and then it will clear from everywhere else. Then the second step is to inject the sugar drug and that itself will circulate around the body but only where the tumour is, where the enzyme is, will you get the cyanide. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]"It will be enough to kill the cancer cells and you will be able to repeat it over and over again until the tumour has gone." Dr Deonarain said the cancer cells would not be able to develop resistance to the cyanide in the way they can with some of current cancer therapies. [/FONT]

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Of course if you were to take high doses of it it may have adverse effects, but thats the same as anything else. There does seem to be ample evidence of this working. The best way to prove or disprove the laetrile theory of cancer, would be to take several thousands of people, over a period of many years, expose them to a consistent diet of Laetrile rich nitriloside foods and then check the results. Fortunately this has already occurred by the study of the following cultures; The Hunza, aboriginal Eskimos, Hopi and Navajo Indians, Abkhazians.[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]

In the remote recesses of the Himalayan Mountains, between West Pakistan, India and China there is a tiny Kingdom called Hunza. These people are known world over for their amazing longevity and health. They live well beyond 100 years and have commonly been known to still father children at the age of 110. One of the first medical teams to study the Hunza was headed by world-renown British surgeon Dr Robert McCarrison. Writing in the AMA Journal Jan 7, 1922 he reported:

"The Hunza has no known incidence of cancer. They have an abundant crop of apricots. These they dry in the sun and use largely in their food".

It is interesting to note that the traditional Hunza Diet contains over 200 times more nitriloside (B17 Rich food) than the average American or Australian Diet. There is no such thing as money in Hunza. A mans wealth is measured by the number of apricot trees he owns. And the most prized of all foods was considered to be the apricot seed. It is very common for the Hunza to eat between 30 - 50 (ie. about 30mg of B17) apricot seeds as an after lunch snack. The thousands of seeds they do not eat they store or grind them very finely and then squeezed under pressure to produce a very rich oil used in cooking and to apply to the skin. The apricot is staple food in Hunza. They use the apricot, its seed and the oil for practically everything. In addition to the ever present apricot, the hunzahuts eat mainly grain and fresh vegetables. These include buckwheat, millet, alfalfa, peas, broad beans, turnips, lettuce, sprouting pulse and berries of various sorts. All of these with the exception of lettuce and turnips contain vitamin B17.

It is important to know when the Hunza leave their secluded land and adopt the menus of other countries, they soon succumb to the same diseases and infirmities including cancer as the rest of man kind.

ESKIMOS

The Eskimos are another people that have been observed by medical teams for many decades and found to be totally free of cancer. The traditional Eskimo diet is amazingly rich in B17 nitrilosides that come from the residue of of the meat of caribou and other grazing animals, and also from the salmon berry. Another Eskimo delicacy is green salad made out of the stomach contents of caribou and reindeer which are full of fresh tundra grass. Tundra grasses such as Arrow are have shown to be contain the highest content of B17 than other grasses.

Alaska's most famous doctor Dr Preston A Price claims that, "In his 36 years of contact with these people he had never seen a single case of malignant disease among the truly primitive Eskimos, although it frequently occurred when they were modernized.

An interesting point to note is that when an Eskimo leaves his traditional way of life and begins to rely on a western/modern diet he becomes even more cancer prone than the average American.

HOPI & NAVAJO INDIANS

The Indians of North America are another people who are remarkably free from cancer. The AMA went as far as conducting a special study in an effort to discover why there was little to no cancer amongst the Hopi and Navajo Indians. The February 5, 1949 issue of the journal of the American Medical Association declared that they found 36 cases cases of malignant cancer from a population of 30,000. In the same population of white persons there would have been about 1800. Dr Krebs research later found that the typical diet for the Navajo and Hopi Indian consisted of nitriloside-rich foods such as Cassava. He calculated that some of the tribes would ingest the equivalent of 8000mg of Laetrile per day from their diet !!!
ABKHAZIANS

The Abkhazians are found deep in the Caucasus Mountains on the Northwest side of the Black Sea. They are a people with almost the exact same health record and longevity as the Hunzakuts.Their food and lifestyle having to live in a harsh rugged terrain are almost identical. They follow a diet which is low in carbohydrates, high in vegetable proteins and rich in minerals and vitamins, especially vitamin Laetrile

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I think instead of ridiculing the people that research treatments that would be basically free for anyone to create and open to the world we should take them seriously and invest money in these cheap alternatives to further test them, we should remain sceptical of what the big Pharma say about them and their research on the subject, they all work on money driven motives. Dismissing people as quacks without giving a decent reason always seems suspicious to me, and this why why I looked into this further.

In the remote recesses of the Himalayan Mountains, between West Pakistan, India and China there is a tiny Kingdom called Hunza. These people are known world over for their amazing longevity and health. They live well beyond 100 years and have commonly been known to still father children at the age of 110. One of the first medical teams to study the Hunza was headed by world-renown British surgeon Dr Robert McCarrison. Writing in the AMA Journal Jan 7, 1922 he reported:

"The Hunza has no known incidence of cancer. They have an abundant crop of apricots. These they dry in the sun and use largely in their food".

It is interesting to note that the traditional Hunza Diet contains over 200 times more nitriloside (B17 Rich food) than the average American or Australian Diet. There is no such thing as money in Hunza. A mans wealth is measured by the number of apricot trees he owns. And the most prized of all foods was considered to be the apricot seed. It is very common for the Hunza to eat between 30 - 50 (ie. about 30mg of B17) apricot seeds as an after lunch snack. The thousands of seeds they do not eat they store or grind them very finely and then squeezed under pressure to produce a very rich oil used in cooking and to apply to the skin. The apricot is staple food in Hunza. They use the apricot, its seed and the oil for practically everything. In addition to the ever present apricot, the hunzahuts eat mainly grain and fresh vegetables. These include buckwheat, millet, alfalfa, peas, broad beans, turnips, lettuce, sprouting pulse and berries of various sorts. All of these with the exception of lettuce and turnips contain vitamin B17.

It is important to know when the Hunza leave their secluded land and adopt the menus of other countries, they soon succumb to the same diseases and infirmities including cancer as the rest of man kind.

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I've been to the Hunza valley and it is a very wonderful place where people are friendly and the landscapes are awe inspiring. I can believe that there many diseases don't (or didn't) exist there as its very remote) but there is no evidence for people's mythical longevity as far I can tell. Until the government set up a diarrhea clinic recently presumably people were still dying from dysentery (I had a dose of it).

for the anecdotal value it has, apparently actor Steve McQueen went to such a clinic in Mexico for cancer treatment and died there, no great escape that time.

b

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yeah, appreciated, its no miracle cure. But a 40% sucess rate in certain tumours is higher than most of the amazingly expensive treatments today, and they all have huge side effects. Thats why it needs to be researched more, and not dismissed based on profit driven speculation. I wouldn't recommend to anyone to turn down treatment for cancer in replace of this if they have it, but I cant see the harm in just eating the pips in your apples or apricot kernels to raise your laetrile levels incase theres something to it. Wouldn't cause any harm, and you've also got another good reason for your mind to think you could recover, the placebo effect can be a powerful thing.